Letters to the editor for Nov. 6, 2013

Why bother when it’s easily done fairly. McClintock and Tea Party foolishly shutdown our government at cost of $24 Billion, while holding our country up to international ridicule. The Tea Party hasn’t passed one piece of legislation but has stonewalled legislative debate: a three-year “shutdown” of the House—the most unproductive Congress in history.

What does “small government” mean? “Cheap government” financed by cookie sales; so feeble it can’t prevent banking fraud? An IRS so underfunded it can’t prosecute the wealthy for overdue taxes? Politicians and judges bribed by “big” money, a mock democracy? The wisdom of 224 years of Congresses reduced to a footnote?

Next Anderson dignifies “voting.” In Tea Party states, “voter id laws” are passed to disenfranchise 11 million Democratic voters “to prevent fraud” where there is none. The Tea Party’s hold on the House is the result of gerrymandering, not the popular vote. Is this the Tea Party protecting the Constitution?

Then the preposterous notion the Tea Party is an unplanned political movement. The Tea Party spearheads right wing politics. It was organized, provided PR and campaign funds mainly by the Kochs, oilmen intent on liquidating America’s safety net. The Tea Party is naïvely helping.

Anderson suggests joining in “denigrating” our fellow Americans as “moochers,” resisting Obama-care while secure on Medicare, dismantling the union rather than perfecting it, embracing injustice, undermining domestic tranquility, discouraging the general welfare and withholding the blessing of liberty to Americans and our posterity. No thanks.

Robert Carabas

Sonora

Dems not the ones in a fantasy land

To the Editor:

In his opinion published on Oct. 28, Mr. Michael Ackley’s assertion that the Democratic position that House Republicans, “particularly those of the Tea Party faction, have refused to compromise with the president” is somehow a fantasy is demonstrably absurd, to say the least. Two indisputable facts should put this preposterous affirmation to rest.

The Senate sent legislation to the House, which was somewhat bipartisan, that would have averted the “shutdown,” at least temporarily. The Republican Speaker of the House, fearing Tea Party type “primarying” in 2014 among other right-wing pressures, would not bring this bill to the floor for debate/vote — it may have passed, we’ll never know for sure if the 20 or so affirmative Republican votes necessary were forthcoming by those representatives who might remain concerned about the government’s ability to function.

Also the three “funding bills,” to which Mr. Ackley refers, all had “riders” attached that were meant to defund the ACA (Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. “Obamacare”). These riders were simply a surreptitious attempt to effectively negate the implementation of the ACA after some 45 or so (I lost count) ridiculous House bills to repeal it — these bills obviously having your proverbial “snowball’s chance in hell” of passing the Senate or being signed by the president. This attempted defunding of the ACA is to what the phrase “we won’t negotiate” refers. (Yet another example of “Faux News” type obfuscation/misinformation, etc.)

Therefore I hereby “put” the question: Who indeed patently dwells in a land called “Fantasy?” Also, to quote Professor Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”

David A. Fristad

Sonora

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